Reform UK mayor 'storms out' of meeting with Labour minister over Henry Nowak 'hypocrisy'

Reform UK's Andrea Jenkyns stormed out of a meeting with a senior Labour minister following a row over "hypocrisy" surrounding the murder of Henry Nowak.

The Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire walked out of a meeting with Communities Secretary Steve Reed and other regional figures over the role social media has played in inflaming so-called "community tensions" in the wake of Mr Nowak's death.

The meeting on Thursday is believed to have been called to focus on which powers could be devolved to regional leaders from Westminster.

At the end of Thursday's talks, time was allocated to give regional leaders the opportunity to discuss the past week's events and its impact on social cohesion.

Mr Reed is said to have started the conversation by blaming “hostile foreign actors” for stoking divisions on social media which lead to scenes of disorder in Southampton, sources at the meeting told The Guardian.

The Communities Secretary is then said to have asked the mayors for their input on how social cohesion could be bolstered across Britain.

Labour's South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard is believed to have agreed with Mr Reed's comments, and suggested deomonstrations from right and left wing groups were leaving "communities" feeling uneasy.

Ms Jenkyns is then said to have disagreed - in particularly regarding the comments made about social media.

The Reform UK mayor then warned the meeting she was going to drop a "truth bomb", before hitting out at Labour figures for trying to shy away from criticism about the Prime Minister's response to the tragedy.

She is also said to have told the meeting that social cohesion cannot exist in Britain without free speech.

Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotheram attempted to rebuke Ms Jenkyns's remarks and then accused her of being part of the Tory Government which "ignored families of victims of the Hillsborough disaster", the insiders claimed.

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The spat then escalated between West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin and Ms Jenkyns, before the latter allegedly muttered something under her breath and left.

Her Reform colleague Luke Campbell is believed to have stayed to finish the talks.

The Greater Lincolnshire Mayor has since denied storming out of the meeting.

She told The Guardian: “The claim that I stormed out is a total exaggeration by a panicked Labour Party clutching at straws ahead of a byelection.

"I simply left the meeting 15 minutes early because I am not a person who can sit around and listen to hypocrisy.

“I stood up and calmly argued that true social cohesion is impossible without genuine freedom of speech, and that the current obsession with divisive identity politics and two-tier policing is leaving ordinary communities feeling completely unheard.

“I have never condoned violence from any community, everyone must be equal under the rule of law… We will not solve the deep divisions in Britain by playing political games with leaked, distorted accounts of private meetings.”

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer accused tech tycoon Elon Musk of trying to "whip up tensions" over his social media posts since 23-year-old Vickrum Digwa was jailed over the murder of the 18-year-old.

He also accused Nigel Farage of being disrespectful to Mr Nowak's family after the Reform UK leader called on Britons to respond to the tragedy with "pure, cold fury".

Meanwhile, Mr Reed told the newspaper after the talks concluded: “This Government is serious about shifting power out of Westminster and into the hands of our mayors.”

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